Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the weeks between Friday, January 24, and Friday, January 31
We mentioned last week that enforcement actions against employers would likely slow down, and slow down they have. Since last week, there have been no announced enforcement actions, new investigations, or resolutions of cases. The only announcements from the EEOC since Trump’s inauguration have been President Appoints Andrea R. Lucas EEOC Acting Chair and Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace (importantly, nothing actually protecting women in the workplace, as in the case of the final press release from the Biden administration, where the EEOC brought a lawsuit against an Alabama employer for discriminating against women)
We did check and found that a similar pause on press releases happened after 2017, and that they didn’t begin picking up until like April or May. But even after that, enforcement actions were more limited than they were under Biden. You can go through our Boss Watch newsletters and see that there were almost always more than 3 stories of enforcement actions just in the South. It’s unclear what we’ll see in the coming months.
We want to reiterate what we said last week: we stand in solidarity with the civil servants whose jobs and missions are under attack by the Trump administration, and who are trying to weather the storm to continue serving the American worker. We unironically and wholeheartedly thank you for your service.
So, since we don’t have anything definitive to report yet, we figured we’d take a look at just one workplace safety incident that happened last week.
On the evening of Wednesday, January 29th, a commercial passenger plane – American Airlines flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines – carrying 60 passengers and 4 crew members collided with a US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter carrying three crew members, killing everyone in both the plane and the helicopter. This is the deadliest aviation disaster since 2001.
Several union members were among the victims. Two Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) members and the relative of a Communication Workers of America (CWA) staffer were on board. Four members of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Trades (UA) Local 602 were also on board. The pilots were members of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). Members of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) were among those responding to the incident in the immediate aftermath. The AFL-CIO put out a statement issuing condolences to the families of those lost – you can also find in their statement a link to the other union statements on the tragedy.
Much is still unfolding about how the crash happened, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will undoubtedly have a full report out as soon as possible. However, it has already been confirmed that the air traffic controller on duty was doing a job that should have been done by two people.
Understaffing of air traffic controllers dates back to before Reagan fired all of the country’s air traffic controllers following the PATCO strike. This issue has received increased attention in the last few years, with an air traffic controller telling More Perfect Union in February of 2024 that a collision will happen in the next three years due to the understaffing issue. Other air traffic controllers said that the schedule, and the anxiety it induces, causes many air traffic controllers to develop depression and a drinking habit.
The New York Times deep investigative piece revealed that as of May of 2023 “only three of the 313 air traffic facilities nationwide had enough controllers to meet targets set by the F.A.A. and the union representing controllers.” Further, “many controllers are required to work six-day weeks and a schedule so fatiguing that multiple federal agencies have warned that it can impede controllers’ abilities to do their jobs properly.”
Quoting from the piece at length:
In the past decade, the number of fully trained controllers has fallen 10 percent, while airport traffic has increased 5 percent. The Department of Transportation’s inspector general recently found that the F.A.A. “lacks a plan to address” staffing shortages.
The F.A.A. has required many controllers to work six days a week. Halfway through 2023, some controllers had already clocked more than 400 hours of overtime, according to schedules reviewed by The Times.
On top of that, many controllers work a schedule where the starting time for their shifts rotates over the course of a week. On the first day, a controller might work an afternoon shift. From there, the shifts start progressively earlier, culminating with a 24-hour period in which the controller works both an early morning shift and, as few as eight hours later, overnight duty. Many controllers call the schedule “the rattler” because like the snake, it has a nasty bite.
…
But many controllers said that, coupled with mandatory overtime, it has pushed them to the physical and psychological brink. Some said they hadn’t sought medical or mental health care because they were afraid of jeopardizing the medical clearances they needed to remain in their jobs. Instead, they self-medicated with banned sleeping pills and alcohol. The result, they said in interviews and internal safety complaints, was potentially hazardous mistakes.
However, instead of putting forward plans to address long documented problems of understaffing within the FAA – like maybe significantly increasing the pay of air traffic controllers, or making the working conditions better – the Trump administration immediately and without any evidence began blaming “DEI.” However, far from decreasing standards, AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson notes that in recent years “as a result of an NTSB accident investigation (and families, unions) the industry has only seen a significant increase in requirements for commercial airline pilot certification.”
Union Busters
Brought to you by LaborLab: The nation’s leading watchdog standing with working families to stop employer coercion and intimidation. Visit www.laborlab.us for more info.
This segment of Boss Watch – union busters, covering national updates – is sponsored by LaborLabor. LaborLab is an employer watchdog organization. They are committed to safeguarding the right to organize through unions, collective bargaining, and mutual aid. They do this by combing through reports that union busters are required to file with the Department of Labor
Here is the new LM-20 that was filed this week:
- Vistar (Livermore, CA) hired LRI Consulting Services for $425/hour
- Workers won their election 19-8, despite the high paid union busting
In addition, the following LM-20s were amended:
- LR Consultants amended their LM-20 for S&S Activewear (Bolingbrook, IL) to include their compensation rate of $0-$400/hour
- The sub-contractors of Labor Information Services, Jose Agraz and Cesar Lopez, amended their LM-20s to add or change their compensation rate to $230/hour for work at Merit Logistics (Tampa, FL)
- Prior to becoming a union-buster, Lopez was the Human Resources Manager at National R.V. He is from Mexico and is bilingual in English and Spanish